72:19-Verse/Notes by sam

72:19-Verse/Notes by sam

.

72:19 “And that,1 when the servant of God stood up, calling to Him, they2 were almost a compact mass about him.”3

1. Read here as further revelation given to the Messenger. See note to 72:1.

2. The reappearance here of the grammatical feature we identified in the note to 72:1 indicates to me that the subject of this clause is again al jinn. Some Traditionalists understand the verse along the same lines, although without sharing my identification of al jinn (for which see Article SJC). Given my analysis of the pivot in personal pronoun from we to you (see note to 72:7 above), 72:8-15 treats of the appeal of al jinn to their own people, and I see the return to the subject of al jinn here as a continuation of that analysis: a Jewish portion of the ruling elites of that time addressing their peers, which is primarily treated at 46:29-31. At 46:29 we read that ‘they turned back to their people, warning.’ This is followed by two O my / our people statements (46:30-31), which format is crucial to the Qur’anic protocol of warning (see my work The God Protocol). The second of these reads: ‘O our people: respond to the caller to God[...].’ I believe it is the speaker in this instance which is referenced to at 72:19 as ‘the servant of God’, and that ‘they’ are al jinn of non-Jewish types (as discussed in notes above to this sūrah). Others are of the view (I assume derived from extraneous sources) that the reference is to pagan Arabs. Muhammad Asad covers that base while entertaining other possibilities. While I disagree with this analysis, I include it for interest: Lit, “would almost be upon him in crowds (libad, sing. libdah )” - i.e., with a view to “extinguishing God’s [guiding] light” (Tabari, evidently alluding to 9:32). Most of the commentators assume that the above verse refers to the Prophet Muhammad and the hostility shown to him by his pagan contemporaries. While this may have been so in the first instance, it is obvious that the passage has a general import as well, alluding to the hostility shown by the majority of people, at all times and in all societies, to a minority or an individual who stands up for a self-evident - but unpopular - moral truth.

3. I.e. the dominant men to whom this group of al jinn were calling as discussed in the notes to this sūrah above flocked to the side of their messenger (see note to this verse above) in such numbers that he was hemmed in. As a result of their acceptance, the world at this time was not destroyed (see particularly note to 72:14), and there ensued a rapid capitulation of huge territories to Muslim rule.

...